Saratoga earns 3rd place overall at Santa Clara Invitational

The speech and debate team competed successfully in the annual Dempsey-Cronin Memorial Invitational at Santa Clara University from Nov. 21-23.

Saratoga High ranked third in Large School Sweepstakes, meaning that from a total of 51 schools, it received the third most awards.

On the debate side, teams competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate, parliamentary debate, and public forum debate.

Junior Shrey Desai placed first in varsity Lincoln Douglas debate out of 124 people.   

“It was a great feeling to win the first big invitational of the year and also win the whole tournament with just enough preparation,” Desai said. “As a sophomore, I was a quarterfinalist at this tournament, but as a junior, I won the tournament, so it was a good experience.”

Along with his personal achievement, Desai said the tournament shows the team’s growth over the years.

“Some of our students are nationally ranked and have done phenomenally at the most recent tournaments, so I have high hopes for the future,” Desai said.

Parliamentary debate imitates British Parliament, and involves two teams of two people debating about a topic they get 20 minutes to prepare for. Seniors Jerry Yang and Rohan Bhardwaj were octo finalists in varsity parliamentary debate. Seniors Sudeep Raj and Michael Ong, were quarterfinalists in varsity parliamentary debate, respectively.

Public forum is similar to parliamentary debate, in which two teams of two people debate about a topic, but public forum teams have a month to prepare the topic. Freshmen Karthik Ramachandran and Sathvik Koneru were quarterfinalists in novice public forum.

In Lincoln Douglas debate, freshman Austin Wang was an octafinalist in the novice division.

In individual events (IE), freshman Elora Pradhan finaled (ranked in the top seven) and freshman Mervi Tan semi-finaled (ranked in the top 14) in novice dramatic interpretation, an event in which the speaker performs a dramatic speech, while freshman Varun Viswanath semi-finaled in oratorical interpretation, where the speaker delivers a 10-minute pre-written speech.

Sophomore Nidhi Jain placed third in varsity humorous interpretation, giving her speech about family road trips. Juniors Michelle Cen and Vibha Seshardi semi-finaled in novice oratorical interpretation and varsity original oratory, respectively.

Freshman Kyle Wang semi-finaled in varsity extemporaneous speaking, where the speaker is given a choice of one of three topics relating to domestic or international affairs, and has 30 minutes to prepare before delivering a 7-minute speech.

Viswanath chose to perform a speech on the importance of “[listening] to [individuals] before helping them.”

“SCU was huge and there were lots of people there too,” Viswanath said. “I learned that I needed to put in a lot more work if I wanted to win a tournament like that one.”